Blog

Finding dinosaur fossils is not something even veteran paleontologists experience every day. Our crews find fossils on about half of the job sites they work, but they simply don’t encounter many dinosaurs here in southern California. It’s not to say these beasts didn’t roam the area—surely they did—but the circumstances for the preservation of their remains were not ideal here. Read more.

Ever wonder why if nobody ever actually SAW a dragon, how people ever came to believe that they could actually exist? Take a journey back to the Middle Ages and get a glimpse into the school of thought adopted by most people during that time. Read more.

Our proud legacy dates back to 1874, when our founders incorporated our organization as the San Diego Society of Natural History. For many years, the group met in various locations, including the Hotel Cecil downtown, and it was not until 100 years ago that we first took up residence in Balboa Park. Read more.

Biologists around the world celebrate Darwin as the co-originator of the fundamental pillar of modern biology. Museums, as storehouses of the diversity of life on Earth, are particularly indebted to Darwin's observant and iconoclastic mind. I heard that within our collection of roughly one million entomology specimens, we have an insect that was collected by Darwin himself. Read more.

Dr. Jon Rebman, Museum curator and the Mary & Dallas Clark Endowed Chair of Botany, recently spent 10 months in La Paz, Baja California Sur (BCS) as part of a work assignment. He lived and worked there from August 2015 to June 2016. While in La Paz, he increased binational collaboration with Mexican scientists and students, conducted extensive botanical research in the southern part of the Baja California peninsula, and wrote a new bilingual, plant field guide for the Cape region of BCS. Read more.

Joel Sartore is a photographer, speaker, author, teacher, conservationist, National Geographic fellow, and a regular contributor to National Geographic magazine. As founder of the Photo Ark project, Sartore has visited 40 countries in his quest to create a photo archive of global biodiversity. Here, we chat with Sartore about this incredible project and his love of photography and wildlife. Read more.

We are off and running with the Social Stories Spectrum Project meetups. On January 19 after weeks of planning, sorting of details, and suppressing our own nervous energy, we finally got to participate in our first meetup with nine incredible high-functioning young adults with autism. Read more.

In this blog post, scientific illustrator Amy H. Gross discusses her passion for science and art and how sketching illustrations of local species keeps her interest in natural history alive and well. Read more.

It was an awesome and humbling experience hiking in Baja California with expert biologists. I felt as if I had walked into a high school reunion: everything looked vaguely familiar, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't summon up names for the plants and animals. However, for the scientists walking on the same trail, everything was an old and familiar friend.
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The Museum’s expertise and interest covers one of the world’s most stunning and biologically fascinating ecological areas. When it was suggested that I visit the Baja California Peninsula to more fully understand our bioregion, no arm-twisting was necessary. Read more.